Job Description
Role Overview:
PIF Africa’s Administration & Project Management team is seeking an Associate Consultant to provide executive leadership support, day-to-day supervision, quality assurance, and operating-rhythm management across the Administrative Operations and Project Management & Delivery Coordination workstreams.
The Associate Consultant translates management priorities into clear workplans, allocates work to the right Junior Consultant, reviews quality, manages dependencies, escalates delivery risks, and ensures leadership has an accurate view of what is moving, what is delayed, and what decisions are required. The Associate Consultant may step into Junior Consultant-level execution where there is a gap, overload, urgency, absence, or quality risk, but the primary expectation is supervision, coordination, coaching, management support, and progressive readiness for Managing Consultant-level responsibility.
Supervisory Scope:
• Supervise and coordinate the Junior Consultant, Administrative Operations role, whose execution scope covers internal service delivery, travel and logistics, procurement, facilities, asset records, vendor coordination, IT subscriptions, access support, documentation, and records management.
• Supervise and coordinate the Junior Consultant, Project Management & Delivery Coordination role, whose execution scope covers meeting governance, minutes-to-action conversion, project schedules, task tracking, dashboards, cross-functional follow-up, bottleneck identification, and escalation notes.
• Keep the two workstreams clearly separated but operationally connected: the Project Management & Delivery Coordination stream identifies actions, deadlines, dependencies, and project risks, while the Administrative Operations stream supports the logistics, vendors, procurement, tools, records, and internal services required for delivery.
• Provide executive support to management by maintaining a joined-up view of priorities, preparing concise updates, flagging decisions required, supporting internal check-ins, and progressively representing the function in management-level discussions as readiness grows.
Who You Are:
• ND/HND/Bachelor’s degree (or equivalent experience) in Business Administration, Project Management, Operations, Supply Chain, Finance/Accounting, Social Sciences, Development Studies, Management, or related fields is helpful.
• 2-4 years of relevant experience in operations, administration, project coordination, consulting support, programme support, logistics, procurement, vendor management, PMO support, or similar; experience supervising interns, assistants, junior staff, vendors, or project support teams is an advantage.
• A structured operator who can translate leadership priorities into weekly workplans, task-board assignments, owners, deadlines, dependencies, escalation notes, evidence standards, and management updates.
• Comfortable supervising Junior Consultants with maturity, firmness, patience, and professionalism; able to delegate clearly, review work, give feedback, coach improvement, prevent duplication, and rebalance support when priorities shift.
• Able to coordinate across Legal, Finance, Strategy, Business Development, IT, Data, Education, Human Resources, Administrative Operations, and other teams without needing to be the technical expert in every discipline.
• Strong judgement, discretion, service orientation, documentation discipline, stakeholder management, escalation, and executive-support instincts; confident using Google Workspace or Microsoft Office, Zoho Connect, Bitrix, shared drives, trackers, dashboards, and project management tools.
What You'll Do:
1. Supervision, Work Allocation & Quality Control
• Serve as the day-to-day coordinator and supervisor for the two Junior Consultant roles within the Administration & Project Management function, ensuring the Administrative Operations and Project Management & Delivery Coordination streams remain distinct in scope but connected in execution.
• Translate management priorities into weekly workplans, task-board assignments, owners, deadlines, dependencies, status expectations, review points, and completion evidence for both Junior Consultants.
• Allocate execution tasks to the appropriate Junior Consultant based on role scope; monitor workload, prevent duplication, identify gaps between the two roles, and rebalance support when urgent priorities arise.
• Review Junior Consultant trackers, logs, minutes, action lists, dashboards, vendor documents, travel records, procurement files, payment evidence, asset records, subscription registers, and project schedules for completeness and correctness before escalation or circulation.
• Coach the Junior Consultants on SOPs, templates, documentation standards, follow-up discipline, stakeholder communication, task closure standards, professional judgement, and management-ready reporting; correct quality gaps early and escalate repeated performance or delivery concerns where needed.
• Step into execution-level tasks within either Junior Consultant scope only when a Junior Consultant is unavailable, overloaded, newly onboarding, or when quality or timing risks could affect delivery.
2. Leadership Support, Operating Rhythm & Task Governance
• Provide executive support to management by keeping a clear day-to-day view of priorities, pending decisions, overdue items, delivery risks, internal service requests, and cross-team dependencies across the function.
• Ensure tasks, deliverables, project actions, and internal service requests are properly created, assigned, acknowledged, tracked, progressed, and closed through Zoho Connect, Bitrix, or other approved platforms.
• Oversee task-board hygiene by checking that owners, deadlines, priorities, statuses, dependencies, references, comments, and evidence are accurate; prevent backlog drift, stale tasks, and unclear ownership.
• Drive follow-up discipline across consultants and workstreams so that tasks are acknowledged quickly, activity begins promptly, progress is visible through updates, and delays are flagged early.
• Supervise meeting-to-execution discipline by ensuring notes/minutes are captured, including via Fireflies or approved AI note-takers; action points are extracted; tasks are created with owners and deadlines; links are attached; and structured implementation notes are prepared where needed using approved AI prompts and governance guidelines.
• Enforce closure standards by reviewing key tasks before closure and confirming that evidence is complete, documents are saved, links are attached, outputs are filed correctly, approvals are captured, and the right stakeholders have visibility.
• Run weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly operational clean-ups as directed, confirming that folders are created, named correctly, deliverables are filed properly, and task boards reflect the true status of work.
3. Project Management & Delivery Coordination Oversight
• Supervise the Junior Consultant, Project Management & Delivery Coordination to ensure internal projects, client mandates, departmental priorities, leadership requests, retreats, meetings, and cross functional workstreams are translated into clear action plans, owners, deadlines, dependencies, risks, and escalation points.
• Oversee meeting governance by ensuring agendas, pre-reads, attendance, minutes, decisions, action logs, risk items, issue logs, and next steps are properly documented and circulated within agreed timelines.
• Coordinate at oversight level across Legal, Finance, Strategy, Business Development, IT, Data, Education, Human Resources, Administrative Operations, and other workstreams to track inputs, comments, approvals, documents, dependencies, and deliverables required for completion.
• Review project plans, workback schedules, milestone trackers, weekly status summaries, delivery dashboards, briefing notes, progress snapshots, deadline reminders, and documentation packs before they are shared with management or used for internal check-ins.
• Identify bottlenecks, unclear ownership, repeated delays, resourcing gaps, missing approvals, and cross team dependencies; prepare concise escalation notes and recommend practical decisions required to move work forward.
4. Administrative Operations Oversight, Internal Service Delivery & Continuity
• Supervise the Junior Consultant, Administrative Operations to ensure procurement, logistics, facilities, documentation, bookings, office support, internal service requests, travel coordination, and records management are executed through approved SOPs, templates, trackers, and escalation routes.
• Oversee in-country and international travel/logistics readiness by checking that flights, hotels, road transport, airport transfers, meeting spaces, printing, courier pickups, itineraries, participant lists, travel document reminders, booking confirmations, cost tracking, and country/city logistics notes are complete and current.
• Ensure institutional travel resources are kept current by the Administrative Operations stream, including approved airlines, hotels, road transport providers, Booking.com or other platform account records, discount arrangements, hotel and travel thresholds, new airline or route updates, and approved vendor/service-provider lists.
• Triage day-to-day IT and systems issues, including device problems, access failures, software bugs, tool disruptions, website/email/collaboration platform risks, and subscription lapses; assign follow-up to the relevant Junior Consultant or vendor, track closure, and escalate where needed.
• Oversee onboarding/offboarding access across platforms such as email, Drive, Zoho, Bitrix, GitHub where relevant, and other tools in use; verify permissions hygiene, removals, access logs, and onboarding checklists.
• Review and approve practical “how-to” operational guides for team members, including how to use task boards, log issues, submit expense memos, request payments, file documents, and follow internal SOPs.
5. Service Providers, Vendors, Procurement, Finance Handoffs & SLAs
• Supervise service provider, vendor, and partner operations by ensuring sourcing, onboarding coordination, documentation collection, performance tracking, contract/engagement record filing, and ongoing vendor communication are properly owned and documented.
• Oversee procurement cycles by confirming that quotes are requested, options are compared, recommendations are documented, approvals are supported, fulfilment is tracked, deliverables are confirmed, and procurement records are complete.
• Track vendor performance at oversight level and enforce expectations around turnaround times, quality, reliability, responsiveness, cost discipline, and service standards; raise underperformance early and propose replacements where needed.
• Coordinate vendor documentation tracking with Legal, including engagement letters, NDAs, contract records, service agreements, and correspondence, ensuring nothing is missing and everything is filed in the correct location.
• Coordinate finance handoffs by ensuring invoices are requested, deliverables are confirmed, receipts and payment evidence are saved, confirmations are shared appropriately, and payment or budget dependencies are flagged early.
• Step into vendor, procurement, or finance follow-ups where the matter is urgent, sensitive, unresolved, or requires Associate Consultant-level judgement.
6. People Enablement, Assets, Logistics, Facilities & Records
• Act as internal operations support at supervisory level by ensuring departments receive timely support with scheduling, logistics, documentation tracking, procurement coordination, tool access, task structuring, and follow-ups, without taking over their specialist work.
• Ensure new consultants and team members are operationally enabled from day one through onboarding checklists, platform access, policy/SOP orientation, folder access, task-board placement, initial tasks, and clear escalation pathways.
• Maintain oversight of asset registers and issuance logs for laptops, devices, equipment, supplies, brand materials, and other organisational assets, including tagging/traceability, repairs, maintenance scheduling, replacements, returns, additions, and disposal or loss incidents.
• Coordinate or supervise logistics and facilities operations, including courier pickups, printing, workspace support, meeting support, equipment movement, storage, supplies, Regus or coworking arrangements, service upgrades/downgrades, office readiness checks, and access needs.
• Ensure operational records are audit-ready: receipts filed, delivery confirmations saved, vendor proofs attached to tasks, approvals captured, payment evidence stored, and all supporting documentation saved in the correct folders using approved naming conventions.
7. Reporting & Process Improvement
• Maintain a master operations and delivery view showing upcoming activities, admin/logistics requirements, procurement or vendor dependencies, finance/payment touchpoints, project milestones, overdue actions, decision points, and escalation items.
• Prepare regular management summaries covering project status, admin backlog, upcoming travel or logistics needs, vendor issues, IT/systems risks, overdue actions, budget or payment dependencies, policy updates, resourcing gaps, and recurring operational risks.
• Strengthen the department’s operating system by improving SOPs, templates, trackers, folder structures, dashboards, escalation logs, approval workflows, onboarding notes, knowledge-management practices, and status-report formats.
• Support updates to administrative and project delivery policies, procedures, request templates, approval thresholds, travel procedures, vendor lists, documentation standards, and reporting rhythms so that the function remains current, consistent, and well governed.
Pay: ₦201,000.00 - ₦276,000.00 per month
Work Location: Remote